Important native and noxious invasive plants in bloom at the wildlife refuge

photo by cade barker The native Wapato plant is pictured in bloom at the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge on Tuesday, July 25. The Wapato plant has been an important food source for area tribal communities for centuries. “Often, along the middle and lower Columbia, families would own large patches of Wapato, camping beside their harvesting sites for a month or more … Sauvie Island, in Multnomah County, Oregon, across the Columbia River from the Confluence Land Bridge, was named ‘Wappetoe Island’ by Lewis and Clark,” confluenceproject.org states in an article titled, “Important Foods: Wapato.”